


Wishing Upon a Star

by glafkes



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Canon Compliant, Characters don't meet, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23346169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glafkes/pseuds/glafkes
Summary: Though yet to meet and still light years apart, Hugh and Elnor both find themselves looking out into space and wondering if there is someone special out there for them.
Relationships: Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	Wishing Upon a Star

Hugh stepped through the door into his quarters, and let out a weary sigh as it closed behind him. It was more a symbolic act than a pragmatic one. The Romulans didn't really have a concept of privacy when it came to an individual's personal life. Hugh had been a borg long enough that he was always comfortable working side by side with others, and yet he had been an individual long enough that the ability to close himself off as and when he chose was fundementally empowering.

Hugh knew that somewhere between the extremes of being one with the collective and absolute solitude, there lay a happy medium of companionship, but he had yet to find it.

He enjoyed his time off duty. At first, some of his Romulan colleagues had struggled to grasp the idea of him taking time for leisure. "Don't you just go back to an alcove to regenerate?" they'd ask, as if he was some kind of device to be tidied away once the work was done. They were taken aback to learn that he spent many of his free hours immersed in fiction. But why, countered Hugh, when the artifact computer had such an extensive database, should he content himself merely with facts and figures? 

At one time Hugh had trawled somehwat aimlessly through thousands of works of literature and media, from dozens of cultures across history, but by now there were a handful he kept coming back to. He had a particular fondness for a series of two-dimensional animations made on earth in the 20th century, stories ostensibly made for children, by turns eerie and enchanting in ways that would appeal to anyone. Hugh's favourite was about a princess who ran away from an evil queen.

It had been a tiring day, and Hugh was in a melancholy mood. There had been strange goings-on lately, and he could sense trouble brewing. He was no stranger to peril and would do whatever was necessary to protect the xBs under his care but, more and more lately he found himself longing for safety and tranquility, and someone to share it with.

Borg cubes didn't have windows - why would they? - but any viewing screen on the artifact could be routed to one of the external cameras. Hugh set his screen to focus on a randomly-selected patch of space, as beautiful and awe-inspiring as any other, and wondered if there was someone else out there who was feeling the same way.

As he gazed into the myriad twinkling lights, he found himself quietly starting to sing.

_"Someday, my prince will come..."_

*********

Elnor stepped through the door into his quarters, and inhaled deeply as it closed behind him. His mind was whirling. In just a few short days, his horizons had expanded far beyond his wildest expectations. He pressed his face up to the tiny window and looked out at the stars. So many places! So many people!

Up until now, most of the people Elnor had ever met could be broadly categorised into two groups. There were the Qowat Milat, a network of mothers, aunts, sisters, loving in their way yet never completely bonded to him as they were to each other. And there were the other inhabitants of the refugee settlement, some of them hostile, many just scared, few of them keen on interacting with "the qalankh boy". On the rare occasions when an off-worlder came to Vashti it was like a whole new facet of the world had opened up to Elnor, with news and insights from far-off planets, intriguing manners of dress and speech, and indeed new ways of being taken aback by the frankness of someone raised by the Qowat Milat.

Of course, off-worlders were generally just that. Most didn't stay long, and many conveyed a distaste for the Romulans. Elnor hoped the crew of La Sirena would be different. Mussiker and Rios had appeared standoffish at first, and Jurati seemed nervous, but gradually they seemed to be warming to his presence. Perhaps one day they might even call him friend. The Qowat Milat had taught him to consider everyone a friend. So far, few had returned the gesture.

Elnor was excited to be exploring strange new worlds. But more than that he was excited to meet new people. Perhaps he would even meet someone he could be bound to, not just his sword to their cause, but to each other in mutual love and understanding.

Elnor looked out into the vast depths of space, and wondered who was out there.


End file.
